the games you play so well
by Nygmatech
Summary: "I am only what you have made me, Albus." Slight ADGG, companion fic to "heart on your sleeve."


the games you play so well

He is dressed in robes of the most delicate shade of blue as they approach the battlefield, heavy fur linings dragging on the snow-covered ground as he approaches. There is frost clinging to his eyelashes and a fine dusting of white on his golden halo of curls and a deliciously curious expression in his cautious silver-blue eyes.

He draws forward, absently raising one leather-gloved hand to stroke the head of the great orange and scarlet bird perched on his shoulder.

He is beautiful.

And what had you been expecting, really? A military uniform? That he had _stayed_ less desirable with age, perhaps, just as you have? Would that make it easier to hate him? Perhaps somewhere in the back of your mind, you still wish to separate things into black and white. Because if Gellert is evil and Gellert is beautiful, does that make beautiful things evil? Does it make evil things more beautiful than they already are, than they already have no right to be? Some part of you still wants to answer yes.

Don't delude yourself. Gellert has always been a swan (you treated him like the ugly duckling he was, once upon a time), and as you are constantly reminded, you are a bird of prey. Don't make things more difficult than they already are.

"He reminds me of you," Gellert says, and looks up from the bird, reacting perfectly as if you had spoken the words aloud. There's always been some sort of understanding between you and him, however much you'd like to pretend there wasn't.

"A phoenix, Gellert? Really, I never knew you thought so highly of me."

He doesn't miss the ice in your words, and he winces and shrinks back a little. Just like old times, really.

"I'm not your toy, Albus. Not any longer."

(He would have done anything to make you stay. You would have done anything for your dream.)

"Is that all this is?" you ask quite sadly, and lower your wand, unaware of when you had even drawn it in the first place. "Proving a point? Yes, Gellert, I most certainly _did_ take advantage of you, and for that I am sorry. But is it really worth this?"

(_Yes_,you say, somewhere in the back of your mind. _Yes, I took advantage of your feelings for me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—_)

He smiles, and shakes his head, but you can't see what there is to smile about.

"I am only what you have made me."

The only thing between you now is a mutual understanding of what it means to have a broken heart (you broke Gellert's heart just as you broke your own—you wonder what this says for you as a person) and two months of insanity and cruel dreams, a faded summer forty six years ago.

"Don't you see, Albus? I do this for you. This is what you would have been, in other ages perhaps. I do this for what we are and what we could have been; I do this for Ariana and give you your sweetest revenge."

"Don't bring Ariana into this," you whisper, breath catching in your throat, suffocating you. _Don't tarnish her name like I did yours._

His smile turns sad, and he looks, if anything, sympathetic and understanding. He takes another step forward, reaching out as if to grab your shoulder in consolement, before he perhaps thinks better of it and lets his hand fall to his side. "Ah," says the great Gellert Grindelwald, his voice _understanding _of all things—

"So that's what this is about, then, Albus?"

It takes a minute before you can breathe again.

"No."

He shakes his head. "I would have never come any closer to you. Britain is yours, Albus; I will not dare to take what is yours again. I would have been foolish, you know it is so."

_What is yours._ What _is_ yours? Is it Ariana, your once-foolish plans, Gellert Grindelwald himself…?

He does not speak for some time after that, and you simply don't have the heart to break the silence. He looks back up into your face, and you both know the words are a lie before they are even close to reaching his lips:

"I killed Ariana."

You shake your head once more. "No," you say again, and it is so much harder this time. "I tried to kill _you._"

(_And the curse missed, and—_)

"I forgive you," he says, his voice quiet and impossibly bright. He has matured since you last saw him (he has not changed a bit, it is only now that you are _seeing_ him), he is _wonderful_ and bright and you wonder exactly where things went wrong.

He takes a half step forward, and makes a split-second decision, reaches out for you.

"Give me your hands, Albus."

Behind you, children build sand castles of the ashes.

You take his hands.

The scene changes.


End file.
